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Author Topic: What's Cookin'?  (Read 95028 times)

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R^2

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Re: What's Cookin'?
« Reply #660 on: July 14, 2010, 06:17:26 AM »

I think my pancreas just made a barely-audible sob when I read that.
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Fortinbras

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Re: What's Cookin'?
« Reply #661 on: August 04, 2010, 05:11:03 PM »

If you ever have a chance to keep a proper sized garden, take that shit.  My tomatoes are just starting to come in (literally hundreds turning yellow on the vine right now,) onions will be good soon, got garlic a few weeks ago, strawberries are having a second bloom and the herbs NEVER STOP GROWIN'.  All of this is happening in about as much space as an average bathroom.

You know how you'll buy the most expensive tomatoes the store has, because the cheap ones are shit?  The quality difference between a good farmers' market tomato and a bad grocery store one is INFINITESIMAL compared to how much better garden ones are.

Never knew cucumbers had a flavor before this year.
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Shinra

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Re: What's Cookin'?
« Reply #662 on: August 04, 2010, 05:14:42 PM »

dinner tonight is Chicken Madras Curry (from scratch) with Jasmine Rice. I added some dried asian chiles to the mix to see if I could kick the heat up a little bit. I'll share how it goes.

If you ever have a chance to keep a proper sized garden, take that shit.  My tomatoes are just starting to come in (literally hundreds turning yellow on the vine right now,) onions will be good soon, got garlic a few weeks ago, strawberries are having a second bloom and the herbs NEVER STOP GROWIN'.  All of this is happening in about as much space as an average bathroom.

You know how you'll buy the most expensive tomatoes the store has, because the cheap ones are shit?  The quality difference between a good farmers' market tomato and a bad grocery store one is INFINITESIMAL compared to how much better garden ones are.

I would love to have a garden but both my wife and I are notoriously lazy. I just don't know if I could maintain it. Having said that, garden fresh fruits and veggies are always the best, yeah, and you can save so much money by maintaining a garden it's not even funny. The downside is of course that your garden's only going to have seasonal vegetables and without a hot house you're screwed during the winter if you don't live in the south, but you can save potentially hundreds during the spring-summer season.

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Fortinbras

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Re: What's Cookin'?
« Reply #663 on: August 04, 2010, 05:18:44 PM »

shinra i am coming to steal your dinner ok

I've been surprised, even though I've had a garden before, at how little work it is after the basic stuff is done to get these things to grow like crazy.  Fertilizing, then planting stuff at the right time in the right spot is basically all it's taken.  Twice it didn't rain so I had to water my stuff.

Fun tomato fact: you bet better, stronger tasting tomatoes from not giving them a lot of water, because they suck water up and become diluted.
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Mongrel

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Re: What's Cookin'?
« Reply #664 on: August 04, 2010, 05:25:44 PM »

Most commercial grocery store fruits & vegetables are freakishly larded up with copious amounts of water (because XBAWX HUEG = good, obv), so that probably applies to a LOT of fruits and vegetables.
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Büge

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Re: What's Cookin'?
« Reply #665 on: August 04, 2010, 06:08:41 PM »

I don't think my landlady would appreciate me digging up her garden to plant tomatoes and basil. If I didn't have so many hangable clothes, I'd use my closet. The last guy who was in my room did. But then he also had a worm farm.
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Shinra

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Re: What's Cookin'?
« Reply #666 on: August 04, 2010, 06:31:26 PM »

The curry came out awesome. Very tangy with a light heat. Accidentally ate one of the chiles, though, and ow. Gotta remember to pick those fuckers out once it's done cooking.

Recipe:

Cube 2 lbs of chicken. Set aside. You can coat in yogurt if you'd like. This adds a nice texture. White meat is easier to deal with, but dark meat always provides a better texture and flavor in curry, imo.

Get a mixin' bowl and pour in the following:
1 6oz can of tomato paste
3 tbsp Lemon Juice
1/2 tbsp Salt
1/2 tbsp MSG (you can skip this if you want)
2 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp ground fennel
1/4 tsp ground fenugreek
2 tsp ground coriander
1 tbsp Ginger Garlic Paste (or 2 tsp ground ginger, 2 tsp minced garlic)
2 1/2 cups water

Mix well, set aside.

If you butched a chicken down to get the meat for this, take the fat and skin and render it down in a pan for a while. Alternatively, you can use a few tbsps of vegetable oil or ghee or even bacon fat for the next step. I prefer chicken fat, just because I hate to waste perfectly good chicken fat. While the fat is rendering (or oil is heating up on low heat) peel and dice two onions and toss them in, along with 2-6 curry leaves, or a bit of curry powder. If you like heat, throw in some dried asian chiles or small green chiles along with the onions and crush them up with your stirring implement. Cook until the onions start to carmelize.

Add the chicken and cook until no longer pink on the outside. Now add the tomato sauce and mix well until the sauce is at a high simmer. Now turn the heat down to medium-low and cook at a simmer for 10-15 minutes. Eat with high quality rice or naan. (Pita works in a pinch) I cannot emphasize this enough. Jasmine/basmati or don't even bother. Minute rice/brown rice/etc is lousy with curry. Should serve six, or four hungry/fat people.


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TA

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Re: What's Cookin'?
« Reply #667 on: August 04, 2010, 06:32:37 PM »

I don't think my landlady would appreciate me digging up her garden to plant tomatoes and basil. If I didn't have so many hangable clothes, I'd use my closet. The last guy who was in my room did. But then he also had a worm farm.

I am given to understand that herbs do awesome in a simple windowbox.
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R^2

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Re: What's Cookin'?
« Reply #668 on: August 04, 2010, 09:49:08 PM »

I tried. My thumbs are brownest.
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Shinra

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Re: What's Cookin'?
« Reply #669 on: August 13, 2010, 06:38:37 PM »

This isn't about what I cooked, but I can't think of a more appropriate thread.

My wife and I were out and about in Tulsa yesterday, and driving down a particularly bumpy, constructiony, trafficy road, I suddenly shouted "OH SHIT!" and whipped the car around. As my wife was shouting in a panic about what (or who) we hit, I exclaimed 'ESTATE SALE' and ripped down a side street.

If you've never been to an estate sale, or you don't have them in your country of origin, here's how they work: Somebody dies or goes to a retirement home or loses their mind, and the family is either too lazy or snooty to divine up their loved one's posessions, so they (usually) hire a third party to hawk off the goods when somebody finally says "Look, the house is just sitting there, and I have bills to pay." I'd love to pretend it's less grim than that, but I've never, ever been to one of these things that didn't have the air of "I really don't care that Gran is dead all that much".

My wife and I love these things because every estate sale is a time capsule of kitschy Americana. A lot of them have interiors straight out of the 70s and the 80s. Pantries full of ancient spices, kitchen gadgets from companies that don't exist anymore. Cheap faux stag-handled knives with stamped blades. Huge collections of coffee mugs. Tarnished flatware. That kind of thing. The best part is the cookbooks. Huge stacks of old cookbooks from the 70s. Southern home living, betty crocker, better homes and gardens, and then of course wonderful things like The Crisco Cookbook, The Knox Cookbook, Cooking With Jello, etc. Food from 1960 thru the end of the 70s was a fucking trainwreck. Aspic everywhere. Mayonnaise where it does not belong. Lemon Jello salad with a smucker's grape jelly vinaigrette. Fluffy Salmon Pie. I'm not making this shit up.

So we walk into this place expecting... well, you know. More of the same. More 1970s garbage cookbooks. More silly, impractical kitchen gadgets from SEARS catalogs of a by-gone era that we don't need but will inevitably buy.

What we found was the home of someone who we could only aspire to be. Being in this woman's house filled me with a profound, deep sadness. It was like stepping into your own grave. She had thousands, and I mean thousands of cookbooks. And I'm not talking about better homes and garden's cookbook of the month. French cookbooks, italian cookbooks, german cookbooks, jewish cookbooks. Many of the foreign cookbooks in their original languages. Some of the books were years old - we found a dutch cookbook from the turn of the century, a creole cookbook from 1916. A frontier cookbook from the Oklahoma land rush. Every book in her collection was marked with her name, her address, and the date she obtained the book. Some of them were marked with inscriptions from who gave her the book, or where she picked the book up. Her primary tastes seemed to lie in French Cuisine, which took up the greatest portion of her collection.

She had dozens of sets of fine china, crystal glasses. Her fine flatware was gold-plated to prevent transfer of flavor. Her knife drawer? Real stag-handled steak knives and carving knives. Two 60 year old Sabatier Jeune chef's knives, supplemented with a Dexter Cleaver and some kind of Dexter butcher's knife. The handles were worn down from years of use.

Her cabinet was filled with fine spices and extracts. The only gadgets we could find were professional baking tools. Her pots and pans had mostly been sold off already, with the exception of some stuff out in the garage - a pile of Griswold and Lodge cast iron pans, pots, ovens and griddles half as tall as me, and a deep, thick-bottomed stock pot which had seen it's fair share of use.

I wish I'd known this woman. I wish I'd been part of her family, just so I could have had a chance to taste her cooking. After we got done at the estate sale, I tried to track her down, see if there was anything about her online - all I could find was an obituary blurb. She died in february, and all this time her house had just sat empty.

Where was her family? Why didn't anyone want any of these things? I can understand the cookbooks, the cutlery. But the flatware, the china? The pots and pans? Didn't anyone have memories of her cooking for them? Didn't her children, or grandchildren, or nieces and nephews remember how important cooking was to her? Did she even have a family, or did she die alone? Was there anyone even at her funeral?

We bought one of her Sabatiers, which is badly in need of sharpening, and a few cookbooks, the most noteworthy of which being La Cuisine De France and Chinese Cuisine: the Wei-Chaun Chinese Cooking Book. (Which is apparently THE guide to authentic chinese cooking. It's a dual language edition.) Once I get the knife sharpened, I plan to delve into both books and do some serious cooking, in her memory. I might not have known her, but I know we shared a common love of cooking. Maybe her family just didn't.
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R^2

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Re: What's Cookin'?
« Reply #670 on: August 13, 2010, 07:39:53 PM »

Crazy jealous here. Not that I could have afforded anything BUT STILL.
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Mongrel

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Re: What's Cookin'?
« Reply #671 on: August 13, 2010, 08:29:48 PM »

Man, that IS depressing. A collection of cookbooks like that should've gone to a fucking ARCHIVE LIBRARY. There are historians who would kill for that kind of an integrated record set.
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Büge

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Re: What's Cookin'?
« Reply #672 on: August 14, 2010, 05:48:05 AM »

Yeah, couldn't you have said something to the executor, Shinra?
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Shinra

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Re: What's Cookin'?
« Reply #673 on: August 14, 2010, 05:53:02 AM »

We're going back next week. If there's still a lot left I'll ask. I agree that this stuff should be donated to a cooking school or a library.
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Shinra

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Re: What's Cookin'?
« Reply #674 on: August 15, 2010, 09:25:56 AM »

My breakfast this morning is crab-stuffed portabello mushroom caps topped with colby-jack cheese.
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Mongrel

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Re: What's Cookin'?
« Reply #675 on: August 18, 2010, 03:59:43 PM »

Anybody got any good recipe suggestions for a gigantic zucchini?

No seriously, this thing is fucking huge. It's bigger'n Wilt Chamberlain's wiener.
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R^2

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Re: What's Cookin'?
« Reply #676 on: August 18, 2010, 04:46:59 PM »

Slice it longwise, top with parmasean, bake,  top with diced tomatoes.   Simple and delicious.
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Lady Duke

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Re: What's Cookin'?
« Reply #677 on: August 18, 2010, 04:50:29 PM »

Don't do it mongrel.  Giant zucchinis are a failure ;-;

I had a nice fresh one from my dad's sprawling garden, and it was not a good time.  Very very disappointing.
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TA

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Re: What's Cookin'?
« Reply #678 on: August 18, 2010, 05:22:10 PM »

Make a huge-ass loaf of zucchini bread.
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Shinra

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Re: What's Cookin'?
« Reply #679 on: August 18, 2010, 05:40:01 PM »

Yes to that. Zucchini bread is fucking awesome.

I took all the knives in the house to get professionally sharpened today. The Sabatier I picked up at the estate sale is amazing.
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